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Happy Monday! I am back on the cooking spree and wanted to get around to sharing weekly recipes again. To start out, here is an easy weekday recipe from Six Sisters’ Stuff for Pork Lo Mein. The original recipe called for bagged veggies, but I opted to chop up some fresh ones instead. Even with adding a little prep time to chop up the extra veggies, this is a good fast weekday meal to try out.

One of my favorite meals to eat growing up was fried chicken tenders. They are SO GOOD!! I love fried chicken, but can get weirded out by tendons or bones or strange texture pieces, so this is the perfect way to enjoy fried chicken for me. These little guys can be served as an appetizer or as a meal with a side. While they are great paired with mashed potatoes or mac ‘n cheese, you can lighten them up by serving with a salad or some fruit.

Ingredients:

1 bag frozen chicken tenders (completely thawed)

2 cups all purpose flour

2 tablespoons garlic salt

1 tablespoon garlic powder

1/2 tablespoon Season All

1 teaspoon black pepper

Vegetable Oil

In a medium size bowl, mix together flour, garlic salt, garlic powder, season all and pepper. I like my chicken salty and flavorful, but you can adjust the amount of seasoning to taste.

Taking one tender at a time, rinse in water and dip into the flour mixture.

Flip it around and pat down to make sure you get a nice coating on all sides.

Set aside onto a plate and continue until all chicken tenders are coated. Reserve the flour mixture for now as you may want to re-dip the chicken before frying if you see missing or wet spots in the coating.

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. In a large skillet over medium-high heat, add about a 1/2 inch of oil. Test oil with a pinch of flour to make sure it is hot enough before adding chicken. Cook on the first side for 3-5 minutes, or until it starts to set and become golden.

Flip and cook the opposite side.

You may want to flip one more time if the first side does not get crispy enough. You do not need to worry about cooking it through, but you want to make sure you have a nice crispy coating on all sides.

Remove chicken from skillet and set on paper towels to absorb the excess oil. Repeat with all remaining pieces of chicken.

Place chicken in oven safe glass baking dishes in a single layer. Pop into the oven for 25-30 minutes, or until cooked through. Try to flip part way through, but make sure to be careful to not rip the coating off. If they are stuck to the pan too much and soggy, then they are not quite ready to flip yet.

Remove from oven and back onto a paper towel to absorb any more oil.

Serve and enjoy! A great game day appetizer or dinner plan. Happy Mealtime Monday!

Mealtime Monday has been a bit more sporadic this year so far, but here I am again with an easy weeknight meal to share. I can’t believe how fast this month is flying by. It is already the 24th and this is only my 2nd post of the month. Wow. In the last few weeks we went to Reno for my company trip, had friends over for an appetizer party, I got sick with a head cold and then we moved offices at work. Crazy busy indeed. Anyways, back to the food, with this recipe from Taste of Home for Kielbasa Sausage Pasta.

Long, long ago I pinned a recipe for PF Chang copycat lettuce wraps (recipe here). After browsing my cooking Pinterest board while coming up with the meal plan list the other week, I stumbled across it again and decided to give it a try, with a few variations. I love meals these Asian turkey lettuce wraps that feel light and healthy on a weeknight, but full of flavor.

Ingredients:

4 large lettuce leaves (I like using Romaine lettuce)

1/2 pound ground turkey

1/2 large onion, diced

1 tablespoon minced garlic

1/2 tablespoon reduced-sodium soy sauce

1/8 cup hoisin sauce

1 teaspoons minced fresh ginger

1/2 tablespoon rice wine vinegar

1 teaspoon chili pepper sauce

4 ounces water chestnuts — drained, finely chopped

1/4 cup green onions — thinly sliced

1 teaspoon sesame oil

First step in this recipe is to do your prep. Dice up the onion, water chestnuts, green onion and ginger. Measure correct amounts and set aside.

Stir together and cook for about 2 more minutes to wilt the onions. Remove from heat. Stir in sesame oil.

Wash the lettuce leaves thoroughly and pat dry with a paper towel.

Fill each lettuce leaf with the meat mixture. Serve and enjoy! Another great work night meal to add to our list. Now I really need to sit down and work on my cook book to keep all our favorite recipes in on easy place. Have you tried any new recipes lately?

Happy Monday! This week I am sharing a new recipe we just tried out that I found while browsing Pinterest. I slightly adapted the recipe from Damn Delicious for pesto chicken roll-ups and found them to be to die for!! So good! So cheesy! So creamy!! Simply good home cooked comfort food.

Welcome to the last mealtime monday of 2013! Crazy how fast this year has gone by. Today I am sharing a meal that I revised from a recipe from Cooking Light. Funny how I thought that I posted this back in the summer, only to find it again when going through pictures. So today I am finally sharing my favorite recipe for tomatillo enchiladas! I searched out this recipe after getting a bag of tomatillos from my parent’s garden. My friend gave me her recipe for a homemade tomatillo sauce, so I was looking around for ideas to use the sauce in. When I saw this I new it was perfect, and I was right. It is a great light, summery meal to share on a December day.

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. In a medium bowl add your shredded chicken. If you don’t have left over chicken to use for this meal, you can easily boil a chicken breast or two in advance.

Add cream cheese to the chicken and stir together to combine. Now add 1/2 cup tomatillo sauce. I prefer to use homemade tomatillo sauce when my parent’s garden is in full production mode, but you can also buy green sauce at the store and blend it with onion and garlic to make it a bit more fresh in flavor. Mix together to fully combine.

Pour chicken broth into a small skillet over medium-high heat. Take one tortilla at a time into the boiling chicken broth, flipping over after 5-10 seconds. This helps to soften the tortillas, but make sure to remove from the broth quickly because they easily become soggy and fall apart if too much broth is soaked up into the tortilla. Remove tortillas to a paper towel and complete with all tortillas. Next, spoon about 1/4 cup of chicken filling along the center of each tortilla.

Roll seam side down into a glass baking dish coated with cooking spray. Repeat process with all tortillas.

Pour more tomatillo sauce over the enchiladas. Top with crumbed queso fresco and chili powder.

Bake at 425 degrees for about 18 minutes or until heated throughout. Serve with lime slices and garnish with cilantro. Enjoy! This recipe is so good and surprisingly light for enchiladas.

Happy Monday! Can you believe tomorrow is Christmas Eve! I feel like this holiday season came and went way too fast. We spent the weekend visiting my family for an early Christmas celebration and it was great. This week I am sharing a recipe from Rachel Ray, Proscuitto wrapped stuffed chicken breasts. This recipe it fairly easy and the result looks and tastes gourmet.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup low fat ricotta

Salt and pepper

3 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese

1 small clove minced garlic

1 tablespoon finely chopped parsley

1 teaspoon dried Basil

1 teaspoon dried Thyme

1 large skinless, boneless chicken breast

Olive Oil

4 thin slices prosciutto

White wine

1 tablespoon butter

Preheat oven to 400F. I used one really large chicken breast and made it work for 2 servings. First I took my pounding mallet and pounded the chicken breast so that it was thinner and larger. Make sure to not go too thin, as you will still need to be able to butterfly the breast. Cut thinned breast in half across the middle, then use your knife to butterfly each half so that you can stuff it later.

Place some of the ricotta mixture on each butterflied piece of chicken and fold the breast over.

Drizzle with olive oil.

Wrap each breast of chicken with prosciutto. Heat your skillet with a tablespoon of olive oil. Add the chicken bundles and brown over medium-high heat, turning once, for 4-6 minutes.

Transfer to the oven to cook through, 12-15 minutes.

Remove the chicken from the pan and deglaze the pan with wine. Swirl in the butter.

Drizzle the sauce over the chicken and serve. I made some easy garlic green beans as a side and they worked great alongside the chicken. This is not the easiest weeknight meal, but a great one to impress guests or for a special occasion.

Happy Mealtime Monday! After taking a week off the blog I am back. This time of the year is so busy with parties and birthdays for us, I can’t seem to find enough hours in the day to get it all done. So this week I am sharing a really easy weeknight meal. This is the green grilled cheese that I got inspired to make from here. It is a great alternative for an “adult” grilled cheese sandwich, complete with pesto, avocado, spinach and mozzarella.

Once all the ingredients are prepped, like in the picture above, it is time to make the sandwiches. Melt a small piece of butter in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Take one side of bread for each sandwich and slather with a generous amount of pesto. Place it pesto side up in the pan.

Add a layer of sliced mozzarella cheese on top of the pesto.

Next add a layer of spinach leaves.

Top with sliced avocados. I used half an avocado per sandwich.

Then finish with a second layer of mozzarella cheese.

Lay the second piece of bread in top. Cook until golden brown on the first side.

Flip, adding a bit more butter and brown the second side. Now the bread is nice and crispy and the cheese is melty.

Cut in half and serve. I like to have my grilled cheese with a bowl of tomato soup. Such a great winter meal and so easy. Enjoy!

Happy Monday! I hope everyone had a great time celebrating Thanksgiving with their loved ones. Alex & I are lucky to live close enough to both families that we get to celebrate the holiday twice, once on Thursday and the 2nd round on Saturday. The meal I am sharing today is my Mom’s recipe for enchiladas. They can be made from any kind of left over shredded meat, so it is a great way to use up some of that left over turkey. This time around I opted for shredded beef enchiladas to use up some of the meat from my French Dip roast.

Shredded meat, can use beef, chicken or turkey (I use about 3-4 cups meat)

10 corn tortillas

Cooking oil

Olives and sour cream to top

Directions:

In a large skillet over medium-high heat, add you shredded meat.

Add to the pan 2 cans of enchilada sauce and the can of diced green chilies.

Simmer on medium heat for 10-15 minutes.

Meanwhile, preheat oven to 400 degrees. Open the 3rd can of enchilada sauce and pour a small amount into the bottom of your glass baking dish.

Heat a small skillet over medium heat. Add a splash of cooking oil to the pan. Warm up the tortilla in the hot oil, flipping after 30 seconds. Repeat until all tortillas are warmed and oily on both sides. Make sure to not leave it in the pan for too long or it will get crispy.

Set up your assembly line of tortillas, saucy meat, cheddar cheese and the baking dish.

Using a paper towel to keep your hand clean, load up the center of the tortilla with the saucy meat mixture and top with cheese.

Roll and place seam side down into the baking dish. I like to roll it in the sauce of the baking dish as I place it down.

Repeat with remaining tortillas, making sure to space out your meat and cheese so that all are approximately the same size. They should be snugly lined up in your baking dish.

Pour a nice drizzle of the remaining enchilada sauce over the top, but not so much that you drown them.

Top with a nice layer of shredded cheddar cheese.

Bake at 400 degrees for 25-40 minutes, or until browned and crisp.

Serve and enjoy! I like to top mine with a generous dollop of sour cream and olives. Such a great way to use up extra shredded meat and super delicious too. Thanks Mom for teaching me this easy and delightful recipe for shredded beef enchiladas!

Here we go again with another Mealtime Monday. Now that it is getting cold again, I love to pull out my crockpot for soups, stews and roasts. One of our go-to crock pot meals is making a French Dip roast. The meat simmers all day so it falls apart and is so juicy, making amazing French Dip Sandwiches with plenty left over for tacos, enchiladas or any other meal you can think of that uses shredded beef.

Ingredients:

4-5 lb beef roast

1/2 cup low sodium soy sauce

5-6 peppercorns

1 teaspoon garlic powder

1 teaspoon dried rosemary

1 teaspoon thyme

1 beef bouillon cube

1 bay leaf

Swiss cheese (sliced)

French rolls

Trim excess fat from the roast and place into the crockpot. In a measuring cup, stir together soy sauce, peppercorns, garlic powder, rosemary, thyme, beef bouillon & bay leaf.

Pour this mixture directly over your roast. Fill the crockpot with water until the roast is nearly covered.

Cook on low for 10-12 hours.

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Remove meat from the crockpot and shred. Pile shredded meat onto your french roll. Top with swiss cheese.

Bake for about 5 minutes, or until cheese is melted.

Serve with a dish of the au jus (the liquid from your crockpot) to dip your slow cooker french dip in. Enjoy!